The Notebook Diaries #5 Letting Go

The notebook is on its way to France. I am full of dread that it will get lost, but also delighted that somebody was so enthusiastic about participating in the project, and sharing secrets with strangers. The fact it is headed for France makes it that little bit more romantic and sexy, because we all know that the French are conoisseurs of the sexual secret. And some of their sex diarists are the most explicit and eloquent. I can’t wait to see what wings its way back across the channel.

Although I found it difficult to pass the parcel over the counter at the post office, once I had I felt lighter, relieved. The notebook and the secrets I had written in it was starting to feel like a burden. And the relationships between the writers involved were becoming a little bit fraught.

Sometimes people share very personal things without meaning to. I first wrote in the notebook, not fully aware that another person would actually read my words, and know the ‘me’ that wrote them. I think everyone who has written in it so far has gone from this naiive unknowing position, to a realisation that this process of telling each other our stories, has made us a little bit exposed.

But it has. There is no backtracking now. You can’t unwrite what you have written, or unsay what you have said, or unfuck who you have fucked. Though God knows sometimes we wish we could do all those things. I am learning to let go. To accept what is, and not worry so much about what might have been, or what should be.

This is what writing can help us to do isn’t it? To accept some of the more painful aspects of life, and to know they are not permanent. Writing it down can help us to let go of our pain, and to move into more pleasant pastures.